


Children of Ice and Snow

by Sunshine_and_Snow



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Canon Divergence - Red Wedding, Everyone Has Issues, F/M, Female Robb, Half-Sibling Incest, House Stark, Jon Snow is a Targaryen, Non-Graphic Rape/Non-Con, Non-Graphic Violence, POV Alternating, Queen in the North, Rape Recovery, War Of The Five Kings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-26
Updated: 2014-04-26
Packaged: 2018-01-20 22:27:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1527929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sunshine_and_Snow/pseuds/Sunshine_and_Snow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Her birthright is a hastily made decision and result of a last resort. Years later they put a crown on her head and call her Queen, and Robbyn learned how to be more than what she's worth a long time ago. </p>
<p>Or, that one where Robb is a girl, madly in love with her brother, and things work out for the better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Children of Ice and Snow

**Author's Note:**

> I had a lot of fun writing this, even though it took a while. Genderswap is basically my favorite trope and I decided to see if I could have it make sense. 
> 
> There is a written rape scene in this, but it isn't graphic. 
> 
> Also, since people like a face claim for genderswap, I wrote this picturing Rachel Hurd-Wood with her bright red curls. Someone on tumblr made a graphic for this, [so now you get to see](http://auandrareshipsphotosets.tumblr.com/post/84057318988/her-birthright-is-a-hastily-made-decision-and)!

Catelyn’s first child is a stillborn son while her husband is away at war, and her next two pregnancies once Ned is home end in miscarriages. On the day she realizes she’s on her fourth pregnancy, she looks to her nephew, raised as her husband’s bastard, who’s fifteen months now, and sits very still while she brushes the knots from his curls. He’s old enough that in normal situations she’d happily tell him a little brother or little sister is on the way, but she and Ned are so used to disappointment that she feels no need to impress it onto her son as well.

Or her nephew. Or Ned’s son, but not hers, even if that’s just for show. In truth though, he’s just a boy without a mother or a father and damn what Lysa thinks, she’s allowed to love him. Especially if she can’t have children of her own.

Just as she finishes with little Jon’s messy hair, Ned comes running in, cheeks chapped from the cold and slightly out of breath. Their nephew’s face light’s up and he clings onto his leg, which of course doesn’t bother Ned at all. “Maester Luwin told me,” he says, reaching down to pry Jon off and carry him over. He makes a wonderful father. “Are you...feeling all right?”

“Well, I can’t tell one way or the other this early on,” she answers, and folds her hands in her lap. “Maester Luwin still doesn’t know what affliction is causing this - Ned, take his fingers out of his mouth.”

Though Lyanna may be Jon’s birth mother, Catelyn is raising him and the way she sees it, that still makes him hers. Regardless, he isn’t hers in the eyes of everyone else, and he certainly isn’t an heir, though if all else fails and she’s barren, they can make him one. But she wants children of her own, at least one if not more because she wanted a son and daughter. Ned makes Jon stop biting his nails, and little boy sulks.

As her husband sits, he says, “We can do what we’ve always done, Cat. We’ll handle whatever comes.”

She lays her head on his shoulder and doesn’t answer, but he seems to understand anyway. It doesn’t matter that they know how to cope in the aftermath. She’s just so sick of losing her children.

****  


 

From the fourth pregnancy and nearly a full month before Maester Luwin’s predicted date, Robbyn of House Stark is born. Another miscarriage and successful pregnancy later and Catelyn has Sansa and after Arya and yet another stillborn, they stop trying, at least for now. It isn’t until after the Greyjoy Rebellion (and the addition of little Theon to the family) that they see a problem with this.

“Well, we do have a son,” Ned says glancing to Jon where he plays in the yard with Theon, Robb tripping over her own feet trying to run after them. “I just fear it will bring unwanted attention to him.”

As of now, the boy is the splitting image of him, but that may not last forever. The Targaryen in him is definitely buried so deep it’s not there to see, but there is a possibility that as he ages he’ll grow to look too much like Lyanna. “Making him heir would put him under scrutiny,” she agrees, and Robb catches onto her brother’s hand. “We can always do as Dorne does and make our daughter heir.”

Even as she says it, the idea goes sour in her mouth because it’s difficult learning to be a lady and it’s difficult learning to be a lord, and Robb would grow up learning how to be a lady and an heir. “She does certainly have the tenacity for it,” Ned says, and Jon trips, bringing her with him. “Don’t hurt yourselves!”

Theon is laughing and as the two struggle to untangle themselves and stand up, Jon shouts, “Yes, Father!” only to have his sister slip and bring them down again. “Robb!”

“You started it!” she answers, and Catelyn sighs. Gods help them, at this rate Robb’s own two feet will kill her before anything else.

“She’s just so...small,” Catelyn says because her daughter really is delicate. Sansa is too, it’s in their Tully features, but her birth wasn’t nearly as early and therefore she doesn’t fall ill nearly as often. “For her age, I mean. If she stays small, do you really think she would be able to wield a lord’s sword?”

When Ned says, “I supposed the blacksmith would need to make her a custom blade,” she realizes they’ve already come to a decision. “The same will be true for armor.”

Swords and armor, two things a mother never wants to hear in relation to her children. If Robb were a son, she’d think it inevitable, but Robert Baratheon loves his fighting and Winterfell needs an heir. Yes, it could be Jon, but truth be told she does prefer the idea of one of her children inheriting the title, which is why, though it pains her, she asks her husband, “So will you be writing to the King or riding to him?”

He laughs. “Writing,” he says. “If Robert summons me to King’s Landing, I’ll go to King’s Landing, but I’m not making that trip unless I have to. I’ve spent too much time away from you and the children already. When do you think we should tell her?”

“Once we can finally get her alone.” She and Jon are nearly inseparable and it didn’t take long for Theon to become part of that, too. “I suppose I’ll see you later?”

After giving her a quick kiss on the cheek, he answers, “Until then, Cat,” and heads off to write that letter.

 

When Jon is eight, he comes down with a fever so severe it nearly kills him and they have to close Robb (and the others, but mostly Robb) out of his room. After he recovers, Catelyn comes and says, “I want you to give him a proper name.”

Ned nearly chokes on the wine he’s drinking. “What brought that on?” While he isn’t necessarily opposed to the idea, they’ve tried for years to be discreet about him. As it currently stands, he’s the only person in Westeros with a claim to the throne through the Targaryen line. The last thing they need is for Robert to learn about that, even if he is Lyanna’s child, something he tends to forget most days.

“I prayed to the gods. I - It doesn’t matter.” Even though she doesn’t say it, he understands clear enough; she made a gamble with the gods for their boy’s health. “Jon looks more and more like you as the years go on. Robb is our sworn heir - even if we do give him a proper name, that won’t change. The only real difference is that he’d be a Lord Stark instead of a Snow.”

For two years, they only had Jon and the very real possibility that they wouldn’t have any other children. He’s not Rhaegar Targaryen’s - he’s theirs, through and through. If his wife made a gamble for his life, Ned’s going to honor that. “Well, then I suppose it’s time to write Robert another letter he won’t understand the purpose of,” he says and the look of the relief on Catelyn’s face makes him wonder what exactly the prayer entailed.

****  


 

“Well, in the stories, you would be like the prince.”

Robb pauses in argument with Jon about who she had to be in their game, as she certainly wasn’t going to be the princess he so valiantly saved, to look over at Sansa. “What?”

Her younger sister straightens her back and says in a much clearer voice, “You’re heir of Winterfell, not Jon. So that makes you the prince.”

“I know I’m not heir,” Jon says before Robb can do anything, as she knows this too, “but that doesn’t mean I can’t save the day, too.”

“You might best her at swordplay more often than not, Stark, but I think she could save herself before you got to her,” Theon says and takes a bite of his apple. “Isn’t that right, Robb?”

Looking up at her place tucked in against Jon’s side, she tells her brother, “He’s right, you know,” and he retaliates by messing up her hair. “Oh, now that’s just unnecessary!”

From across the little circle they’ve made, Arya says, “People in Winter Town call you the Lady Heir,” and she ignores her needlepoint as surely as Robb ignores her own while Sansa returns to her work. Though Robb actually does enjoy things like needlepoint and sewing and stories and dresses, the weather is beautiful and outside is no place to waste on anything like that.

“Lady Heir?” she repeats. “Is that supposed to be a fact or condescending insult?” By this point, she’s incredibly use to the latter.

Sansa answers, “To be fair, ladies are not normally heirs,” and it’s the first time in a while she’s actually said something that annoys Robb. “Theon, please pass an apple.” He reaches the basket easily to give one to her and she smiles brightly. “Thank you.”

“I want to go for a swim,” Robb says, suddenly pulling away from her brother. “Does anyone else want to?”

“I will,” Jon says instantly because where one of them goes, the other follows. All the others echo not a moment after, and he stands first before helping her up as a lord should do for a lady, even those that don’t need saving because Theon is right and she can save herself.

She turns, grabbing both his and Theon’s hands. “Come on,” she says with a smile. “Let’s see which of us is fastest.”

In the end, it’s not a tie, but close enough, and they won’t let her proclaim herself winner. But that’s all right, because then she’s tumbling into the water, dragging Jon with her, and the whole world is hazy and bright.

****  


 

Long past the age that they both know is appropriate, Jon and Robb sometimes share a bed. He can tell that they both know it’s not longer appropriate because she won’t come to his room until everyone else is asleep, or he to hers, and they never speak of it. “I’m cold,” she says, pulling the furs up her ears and burying her face into the pillow. “Mother said it’s because I spent too long in the rain.”

Her hair is still wet, though that could be from bathing as she’s no longer muddy and smells of soap. “She’s right, you know,” he tells his sister, and pushes flatted curls out of her eyes. “That wasn’t smart what you did.”

“I just feel as though I’m not doing anything properly.” It’s not the first time she’s said it, and it hurts to hear it every time. “I’m probably better suited for archery than swordplay, but that’s what I’m stuck doing, and with a sword still half the weight of yours.”

When he gave her the blade a year prior, Father said every great sword has a name, but she has yet gives hers one. Jon doesn’t understand why she’s so ashamed of needing something lighter. “You’re quicker than anyone I’ve met,” he says, though it’s hollow praise in the end as they haven’t actually met many people. “Normal ones are heavy. They would slow you down.”

But she just frowns. “It’s because I’m too small,” she says. “They should have legitimized you instead of -”

“Don’t say that!” She quiets, and he feels terrible for raising his voice, even if it was only slight. “Mother and Father wouldn’t have made you heir of Winterfell if they hadn’t thought you could do it, Robbyn. Has Father even mentioned anything about you not being good enough?” When she shakes her head, he continues, “See? So you’re small. That’s all right. It makes you quick.”

Even though he thinks it’s compelling argument, she still seems doubtful, which means there’s something else. Before he can ask, she says on her own, “It’s more than skill. Mother and Father have tried finding me a husband, but no one wants their son into a relationship where the woman would hold the power. I don’t want to be married, but that’s going to cause political tension once I’m older.”

She’s got the head of politics, which probably has something to do with rationalizing all the ways those stories of lady loves being saved their knights could have been solved in much less violent manner. While he understands this too, he doesn’t like it. They’re the oldest Stark children: where one goes, the other follows. Everyone knows that. But he also knows it won’t last that way forever because they aren’t the Targaryens.

“They should have just legitimized you,” she says again, but her tone is sad. “You’d be much better at this than I am. Women from all over Westeros would be falling over their feet wanting to marry into House Stark because of you, even if you do mope more than is possibly good for you.”

“I don’t mope.”

“Oh, you most certainly do, brother.”

He sighs and kisses her forehead. “Go to sleep, Robb.”

Moving closer, she says, “Don’t you dare leave me, Jon,” and he knows better than to ask why she even thinks he would.

“You don’t need to worry about me,” he answers, slinging an arm over her back as she lays her head against his shoulder. “I’m not going everywhere.”

Her smile forms in that one bare spot on his collarbone. They don’t talk again for the rest of the night and though it takes some time, eventually they both drift off into a sound sleep.

****  


 

For the most part, Robb acts very much like Jon and Theon, though those two never seem to stop fighting, more than her sisters, but she sounds an awful lot like Sansa when she says, “They’re adorable.”

Right there, Ned knows he’s already lost, because she’s holding a little direwolf, too, and Theon hesitates with his knife. “Father,” Jon says, looking from the rest of the litter to him, “there are five pups for the St - younger Stark children.” Oh gods, he was willing to exclude himself from the family in front of Robb for this, something that never ceases to cause an argument. “The direwolf is a sigil of our house. Perhaps we were meant to find them.”

“Oh, please, Father.” Bran’s eyes are wide and pleading, and his sister’s are not much better. “Robb and Jon can share. They already share everything else.”

All four of them, including Theon as Robb expressed interest, are looking to Ned with those same pleading eyes. “You’ll feed them yourselves, train them yourselves,” he tells them, surrendering and trying not to think about what Cat will say, “and if they die, you’ll bury them yourselves.”

Robb positively beams and hugs his arm, careful not to crush the little wolf in her grasp, and she releases him just as Theon passes her another. Perhaps if they hadn’t just seen a man ranting about wight walkers beheaded not a half hour earlier, he wouldn’t have agreed. But they all look so happy he can’t find it in himself to mind too terribly.

Besides, his eldest daughter is involved. She has half of Winterfell running around doing whatever she wishes without even realizing it. No one predicted she would turn out as beautiful as she did, and he knows that’s one of the reasons why.

It’s a relief when, as they go to turn away, they hear a quiet yip and Jon retrieves a sixth direwolf. The little thing is different, pure white and small, but it means all his children have one now, and he thinks that’s a good sign.

****  


 

The King sends a raven that Jon Arryn is dead and that the royal family is coming just in time for Jon’s seventeenth and Robb’s fifteenth name days, as they fall ten days apart. “Father told me the Queen will most likely act very disapproving of my position,” Robb says the day before their estimated arrival, and over the past two years she’s grown into her place in Winterfell. “And to think the ‘Lady Heir’ comments have finally stopped.”

“Just stay by me,” Jon says. “We can disappear together the moment we find an opening to do so.”

As this is the royal family, Robb thinks it will be much more difficult than usual. Even so, she answers, “All right,” and lays her head on his shoulder. Her heart gives a little flutter when he places his on top of hers as it has for the past year.

She’s learned to ignore it.

****  


 

Apparently she has not, in fact, learned to ignore it.

Wine from the feast makes them loose, though not drunk, and they steal each other away to her room soon after they drag Arya off to bed. Grey Wind and Ghost are here and Robb thinks the conversation was about those two, but she and Jon lose track of their talk quickly because all of the sudden his mouth is hot against hers.

She slips her arms around his neck, heart pounding in her chest, and his fingers touch at her waist. It isn’t until she moves, and her dress accidently slides up as it has a thousand times before, that what they’re doing hits them hard and Jon pulls away. His face’s gone pale, and he steps away from her as if rejected.

“Wait!” she tries to call after him, but he’s already fleeing, Ghost at his heels.

****  


 

“I have an oldest son, you have an oldest daughter,” Robert says. “It’s like I tried to tell you yesterday in the crypt, Ned - we can still join our houses.”

Ned walks the yard with his friend, who watch Robb practice archery with Theon, Jon oddly out of sight. “I understand she’s closest to Joffrey in age,” he answers, because the boy’s sixteen and she’s just fifteen, “but she’s heir to Winterfell, Robert. You know this.”

Even for him, refusing Robert is a bad idea, but this is Robbyn and despite every obstacle thrown in her way over the years, she’s prepared to take her place if necessary and he firmly believes this. His friend, though, is still skeptical as he says, “Your bastard has a proper name. He’s older. I don’t understand why you haven’t just made him heir.”

“Robbyn is heir of Winterfell,” Ned says. “Robert, I intend to keep it that way. I’m sorry to disappoint you, but my daughter cannot go to King’s Landing.”

Her arrow goes wide, something that never happens unless she’s bothered or stressed, and Theon puts a hand on her shoulder. For a while now, Ned and Catelyn have been contemplating marrying him into their house through either Robb or Sansa, but the idea of his second daughter is ruined as his friend asks, “What about the other one? She’s not too much younger either.”

Being a father means, to at least some degree, bartering off his children. Though he knows this, he doesn’t like it. “I’ll have to discuss it with Cat.”

“I know she’ll have to be away from home, Ned, but she’ll be Princess of Westeros. There’s no reason to refuse.”

There are a lot of reasons to refuse, but if he does agree to be Hand of the King, he’ll at least be able to go with her. Perhaps he’ll bring Arya as well so she won’t be alone. Regardless of what she herself believes, he knows that Robb can take charge if she needs to.

He has that one small security, at the very least.

****  


 

They scream at each other in the godswood when Jon tells her he’s leaving, and it’s nighttime, far enough from the castle that no one will hear regardless of how loud they raise their voices. It’s been years since they’ve yelled at each other.

“You’ve been ignoring me for the past week,” she says, and he knows that she knows perfectly well why. “Now you’re finally here to talk to me again and it’s to tell me you’ve decided to join the Night’s Watch?”

All right, so she right to be angry, but Jon has right to leave. “What, would you rather find out from someone else?”

Robb crosses her arms, body tense. “I’d rather you not go at all,” she answers. “Father, Sansa, and Arya are already heading to King’s Landing, Bran won’t wake up, I’ll be Lady of Winterfell. You really can’t be saying -”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying!” This is wrong, they don’t fight, but there they are, screaming at each other in the godswood. “It’s my decision, people will talk less about how it should have been me -”

“Oh, shut up.” He hasn’t seen her this angry in his life, and certainly never towards him. “At least show me enough respect not to lie, Jon. We both know that’s not why.”

Obviously they do, so he shouldn’t have to explain it for her. But she’s standing there, arms crossed, waiting to hear it. “Because we shouldn’t have done that!” he finally says and she, if possible, tenses further. “You’re my sister, my little sister. I should be protecting you, not - and I didn’t want to stop.”

She moves suddenly, and she’s weaker than him but she’s quick, and she’s got him pressed up against a tree. “We’ve always been too close, Jon,” she says, finally not yelling, “so who the fuck cares? Why is that so terrible that you’re leaving me?”

“You’re my sister, Robbyn.” Really, she’s so far from a fool that fighting against this makes little sense. “Besides, you’re going to have to get married one day, I’m going to marry one day, we can’t -”

“So, what? You’re just going to give up Winterfell because we’ve pushed the boundaries on being siblings?”

All he is, in the end, is a bastard, which he’s been reminding himself of since the idea came to him. It doesn’t matter that they call him Stark; by blood, he’ll always be a Snow. He starts, “You’re being unreason -” but is cut off suddenly when she kisses him.

This is his sister. Kissing him. And this is him, not wanting to stop it.

But he’s still the older brother and that means he has to talk responsibility, so he pulls himself away no matter how much that small part of him screams that it’s a bad decision. There are tears in her eyes that weren’t there a moment earlier, and she turns her head when he reaches up to brush them away. “I’m just doing what’s best for both of us,” he tells her, and the words feel dishonest.

“You promised you were never going to leave me.”

Even though he doesn’t remember doing so, he doesn’t doubt he did. “It hadn’t been this complicated back then.”

As she releases him, she says, “I never thought you’d lie to me,” and he doesn’t know if, in that moment, he hates himself or her bitter smile more.

****  


 

Before she goes to say goodbye to Sansa last, Robb sees Jon off outside the stables. It’s snowing, and there are snowflakes catching on her eyelashes. “Don’t you dare die,” she tells him and looks much more like the little girl he would swim with in the godswood’s streams than acting Lady of Winterfell. “Promise me you won’t.”

He reaches over and tucks her hair from her face, which is bright as fire against the light white snow. “I promise,” he says. “We Starks are hard to kill.”

Of course, she’s always beautiful, but she looks exceptionally lovely right now, with her red curls falling against her furs and mouth pink from the cold.  Maybe he always loved her too much, but was just much better at ignoring it for sixteen years. Now his walls are cracked and when she says, “I love you,” they break.

This is his last opportunity, he reminds himself, and kisses her soundly before climbing onto his horse. “Take care of yourself, Robb,” he answers, and her blue eyes shine from unshed tears.

Then he rides away, and neither of them say goodbye.

****  


 

Robb works herself to the ground soon enough, and Catelyn doesn’t notice until she leaves Bran’s room with her bandaged hands and finds her daughter writing out appointments with one hand while petting Rickon’s hair with the other. She looks an awful lot like a young mother with the way her little brother is perched on her lap and her tired eyes.

Even though she would never ask, Catelyn can’t help but wonder if it’s Jon’s absence or the workload that’s causing this.

When she enters her daughter’s room, Robb doesn’t look up. “How are your hands?” she asks, and Rickon doesn’t wiggle off her lap to run over, even as he greets her. I should have been here, Catelyn realizes, and feels so terribly guilty.

“Maester Luwin says I’m to recover in time,” she answers, and folds them in front of her. Robb finally puts down the quill and looks up and she seems exhausted enough to tip over at any moment. When was the last time she’d eaten? She looks thin. Theon would know. Theon probably forced her to sit down and eat. “How are the appointments coming along?”

With a small shrug, Robb says, “Well, I think. I still feel like I had little idea what I’m doing.”

Catelyn steps behind her, reads it quick over her shoulder, and Rickon stares up at her with wide eyes. “That looks good. I would have done the same,” she tells her daughter, and all she receives in turn is a small smile. It’s time to get this over with. “Robb, I need you to find Theon and meet me in the godswood once you have. I’m going to take Rickon to Nan in the meantime.”

“Why can’t I come?” her son says with a decisive frown that reminds her of Theon. The two must have been acting like parents to him for the past three weeks and children of six learn fast. “Robb, I want to go.”

With another small smile, Robb gives him a quick kiss to the top of the head and removes him from her lap. “Go with Mother,” she says. “I’m sure Old Nan will tell you any story you ask for. Mother, am I right in assuming this is about last night?”

“Yes, you are, but that’s all I can say for now,” Catelyn answers, and does as Robb did to Rickon and kisses her hair. People call her the Winter Rose, which is so similar to what they once called Lyanna, and she hopes the name isn’t cursed. “Just find Theon for me. I want him to hear this too.” Though not his son and not even a Stark as Jon is, she still views the boy as family and he views her children as such, so she thinks he deserves to know what happened to Bran.

“I’ll see you soon,” Robb says and Catelyn agrees before taking her son’s hand with her fingers and leading him away.

If this daggers means what she thinks, she might have to leave too. She just hopes Robb can cope with that.

****  


 

It takes three days for Jon to snap. “It’s Stark,” he says because bastard or not, he still takes pride in belonging to his House and his name. “Not Snow.”

“There are other bastards here, Jon Stark,” Thorne tells him, crowding in close. “Do you think just because your father legitimized you that you’re better than the rest of them?”

“No,” he answers because if anything he’s worse, as his reasons for coming had to do with something more than not having an inheritance. “I just think a man should be called by his name, don’t you?”

Out here, his name is his tie to Father, and his siblings, and even his mother who isn’t really his mother, but most of all to Robb. Thorne stares him down, so he matches the gaze, uncaring for insolence, because he won’t sacrifice himself completely.

He’s not surprised when he’s told to clean the armory, and he does so without complaint.

****  


 

For someone as small as the Lady Heir of Winterfell, or the Winter Rose, or whatever it is that people what to call her this year, Robbyn Stark is oddly intimidating. Lord Jon spoke of her in a similar tone to how Jaime speaks of Cersei, and sitting there now she really does look as regal as any queen.

“The feather beds in the brothel will be soft enough,” he says, unwilling to spend a moment longer in this cold, unwelcoming castle with that frozen beauty taking her father’s place and her mother nowhere to seen. “I’ll sleep there, and both of us will rest easier.”

Theon Greyjoy leads him out and Tyrion wonders how long it will take before Jon Stark comes running back to his darling sister.

****  


 

Even though Robb tries hard to play the part of untouchable Lady of Winterfell, Theon knows the strain it puts on her is enormous and Jaime Lannister hurting Lord Stark is what breaks her. “I can’t,” she snaps when he tells her the truth, that’s it up to her to represent her House and that she’s not a child anymore. “Theon, I just can’t. No one listens to me. I might be in charge, but do you know how hard that is when the whole North acts as though I’m some sort of joke? Everyone looks at me and sees this little girl who needs to get married soon so her husband can take over. I never know what I’m doing, I’m always making the wrong decisions - if I called the banners, all that would happen is the lords would argue about who gets to lead who.”

When they were younger, the Lady Heir comments always had felt insulting, but she’s old enough now that all she needs is one strike to remake her own reputation. More than that, though, she doesn’t seem to be making any bad decisions that he can see.

Before he can tell her this, though, she suddenly looks around and says, “Did you see where Bran went? Bran!”

Fuck. They should have been paying attention. “Go,” he says, removing his bow. “I’ll circle around.”

By the time he’s reached her and shot the man through the chest, she’s got a dead man of her own at the ground by her feet and a bloodied sword. She drops the woman, runs right past him, and falls to her knees next to her brother, who she hasn’t spoken too much since he woke as he’d largely ignored her until he found out he could ride. She asks something in a lower voice and he answers, and then she twists her body, says, “Thank you,” and holds Bran tighter.

“What should we do about her?” Theon asks, holding back a small smile, earlier argument already forgotten, and pulls his string taunt.

The woman pleads for her life and Robb answers, “We’ll leave her alive. Can you help me get Bran back on his horse?”

For a skinny boy of ten, Bran is heavy, and Theon lowers his bow to go help. Robb moves away to get her sword and lead the wildling woman, and her bottom lip is caught between her teeth.

He never thought this before in his life, but he really fucking wants Jon.

****  


 

Before Uncle Benjen had left, he told Jon not to take the black if he didn’t think he could keep the vow. Now it’s the day before he’s to say his words, and his uncle’s horse comes back without its rider.

When he tells the Lord Commander what he needs to do, the man doesn’t look particularly surprised. “Benjen said you might not last,” he tells him. “Said it wouldn’t be long before you saw sense and went running back to your sister. Which means the real question is, why did you come in the first place?”

Since he can’t exactly explain that he and Robb started getting decidedly less brotherly and sisterly, he answers, “It’s complicated.”

“All right, then, Stark,” the Lord Commander says, a vein of disbelief in his voice, “I’ll release you from your duty. If you’d waited one more day, I’d have to behead you for this.”

Yes, he knows. That’s why he’s leaving now. “If you find my uncle, please tell him I’m sorry.”

“He’s the one who predicted you’d do this.” Of course he did. Anyone who looked at them could see that they were close. “Good luck, Stark.”

“And you, Lord Commander.”

He doesn’t send a raven ahead of time because he doesn’t want his friends to try to convince him to stay again. Instead he climbs on his horse and rides out the gates and into his country, Ghost at his side. It’s time to go home.

****  


 

Sitting in a room surrounded by her father’s bannermen doesn’t make her feel as uncomfortable as she thought it would, despite all the arguing. “Thirty years I’ve been making corpses out of men, girl,” Lord Umber says, clasping his hands in front of himself and so far he’s protested the most. “I’m the man you want leading the vanguard.”

“Galbart Glover will lead the van.” She decided this hours ago.

Loud enough for the whole hall to hear, he answers, “The bloody wall will melt before an Umber marches behind a Glover.” Though she’s not uncomfortable, she does want to kill everyone here steadily more and more as time goes on. “I’ll be leading the van, or I’ll take my men and march them home.”

He may be protesting the most, but she’s been met by friction all day. Perhaps now is finally her opening to put a stop to that. “You’re welcome to do so, Lord Umber,” she says, and stands, “and when I am done with the Lannisters, I will march back north, root you out of your keep, and hang you for an oath breaker.”

“Oath breaker, is it?” He stands, roughly knocking aside his goblet. “I won’t sit here and swallow insults from a girl so green she bleeds grass.”

Theon stands, too, knife drawn, the moment Lord Umber’s hand touches his hilt, but it’s Grey Wind who reaches him first. There’s a scream, a growl, a crack, and when he again gets to his feet, he’s missing two fingers. “My father taught me it was death to bear steel against your liege,” Robb says, keeping her eyes to his. “Doubtless, the Greatjon’s hand only slipped.”

For a moment, Lord Umber does nothing, breathing still coming in too rough, but then he says, “Whoever named you a Winter Rose was wrong, My Lady. You’re a damn wolf.”

Then he laughs, and everyone else laughs, too, and Robb joins in from relief.

****  


 

“Robb’s gone off to war?”

Bran nods. “With eighteen thousand men, Jon. You’re going to go after her, aren’t you?”

Though he feels guilty, he nods. His little brothers won’t have anyone here for some time. “We’ll be back soon,” he says, and hopes it’s a promise he can keep.

****  


 

Mother comes, and a day later Jon. She gets to him first, pulls him into a hug, and then berates him for leaving in the first place. Then Theon has to tell him off, too, lies and says that Robb sulked, which she absolutely did not, and it takes near an hour before she can pull him away into her tent to talk.

“Does coming back mean I kept my promise?” he asks.

“Just shut up,” she tells him, and pull him down into a kiss.

Unlike their last few times, he doesn’t pull away, and his hands settle on her hips, drawing her closer. “I’m sorry,” he says, and his words ghost against her lips. “I never should have left, especially when you were all on your own -”

She interrupts him again with another kiss, swallowing down what else he has to say. “You came back,” she answers, and her fingers find his hair. “That’s all that matters to me.”

“I love you.” He rests his forehead against hers. “You’re right, I don’t care what happens, I love you and I never should have run away.”

Half-siblings, she reminds herself, and the Targaryens did it for generations. Even if they need to hide it, this doesn’t have to be a bad thing. “I love you, too,” she says. “Please don’t leave me again.”

Jon promises not to, and she tells herself that this time he means it because last time he was scared and she was too. But now they’re together, and he holds her in the stillness of the tent as if he intends to never let her go.

 

After Robb sends the scout away, she turns and says, “I’m going to send a distraction to Tywin while the larger party circles around and attacks Jaime in order to take him captive. Two thousand men at most, a very small party, and I need them led by someone willing to call a retreat. Both parties will attack after nightfall.”

Everyone just sort of glances around to each other before Catelyn finally asks her daughter, “What did you say to him?”

“That twenty thousand men are marching south,” she says with a smile easy as a summertime breeze, and rearranges the pieces on the board. “I’m going to lead the attack on Jaime. I want to take him in alive. What I don’t want is for the attack on Tywin to be a death sentence, so this is not going to be an honorable fight.”

“Not honorable?” Lord Glover repeats. “If you don’t mind my forwardness, My Lady, what do you mean?”

Robb worries her lower lip and looks up from the board. “Light fire to the tents, burn their camp to the ground, and do it in the dead of night,” she answers. “Cause a panic. Draw them into the trees if they’re in the area and then retreat to minimize casualties. It won’t be a battle to be sung in pretty songs, but I don’t care for that. All I want is my men alive.”

Oh, that’s her girl. As much as she hates that her daughter is leading a host to war, Catelyn appreciates that she goes for life instead of glory. Perhaps it would have been different had she been a son. “Archers will help in lighting fires,” Theon says, and adds, “My Lady,” as a clear afterthought. “I’ll go with them if you wish.”

“No, I want you to help with the assault with the Kingslayer, as bowmen are needed for that too. That takes priority,” she says, before looking after everyone of her lords individually. “Which of you is willing to call a retreat?”

Before anyone can answer, Jon says, “I’ll do it,” which takes Catelyn by surprise. Since he returned, she hasn’t seen one without the other once. “A direwolf in both battles? It’s an advantage the Lannisters won’t expect.”

More surprising, though, is Robb’s immediate, “All right.” The others look as though they’d like the protest, but hold their tongues. Perhaps the direwolf argument is too sound.

Even so, Catelyn wishes they would stay together. After all, it’s easier to lose one or the other when they’re apart, and she’s not prepared for that.

****  


 

In return for crossing, Arya has to marry one of Lord Frey’s sons. But worse than that, Jon has to marry one of the man’s daughters, and Robb had to agree because Mother barely saved her from taking a Frey as a husband of her own and they desperately needed that bridge.

Later, in their tent, she cries, and she knows Jon isn’t too composed now, either. “We knew it was going to happen,” he says. “Robbyn, we knew.”

Yes, they did, but that makes it no less painful.

****  


 

They burned the tent acting as a kitchen.

They burned the tent acting as an armory. And that’s not to mention half the other tents at least singed, if not turned to ash.

Tyrion watches his father’s fights tighten in anger to the point they’ve turned white. “We’ve won the battle,” he says, “but we’ve lost more men. That retreat was deliberate. Twenty thousand men. I underestimated the Stark girl.”

Supposedly, Jon Stark was at the Wall, but he was very clearly leading the attack. Still, Tyrion doesn’t doubt for a moment that plan was all Lady Robbyn. Father continues, “She has my son.”

“Who even attacks at night?” Lord Swyft says. “And here I thought the wolves loved their honor.”

With a quiet sigh, Tyrion says, “She’s young. She attacks like a child. Children are unpredictable. She appears to be less green to strategy than we hoped, though.”

“Jon Stark’s wolf killed killed a dozen men and as men many horses. I heard it was twice that for the girl’s,” Lord Spicer says. Tyrion saw Grey Wind himself, that oversized creature that prowled in front of her even more than the Greyjoy boy. Here they had Ghost, but as the men focused on burning the camp, they didn’t see much of him. “Is it true about Stannis and Renly?”

Swyft answers, “Both Baratheon brothers have taken up arms against us. Jaime captured, his armies scattered. It’s a catastrophe.” He pauses, looks to Father’s back, and adds, “Perhaps we should sue for peace.”

Oh, for the - Tyrion knocks his glass off the table, where it shattered on the ground. “There’s your peace,” he says, pointing to its broken remains. “Joffrey saw to that when he decided to remove Ned Stark’s head. You’ll have an easier time drinking from that cup than bringing Robbyn Stark to the table now.” And Jon, apparently. The two are almost despicably loyal. “She’s winning, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“I’m told we still have their sisters -”

Father finally interjects, “They have my son!” and turns around. “Get out, all of you.” Everyone goes to move, Tyrion as well, but his father says, “Not you,” and he stays.

Since he was born, Tyrion has seen Robert’s Rebellion, the Greyjoy Rebellion, and what Father did to House Reyne. In all that time, he’s never seen anyone cause as much aggravation as Robbyn Stark after a single battle.

If the girl didn’t have his brother, he’d almost call it impressive.

****  


 

“I’ll give you a present,” Joffrey says. “When I kill your traitor sister, I’ll give you her head as well.”

High, high above them are the heads of her father and father’s men on spikes and Sansa thinks of Robb with her dark red curls falling down her back.

“Or maybe she’ll give me yours.”

The bruises sting, and she wears them like a badge of honor.

****  
  


 

Though they ran off to war, Catelyn had yet to hear either of her children say anything as violent as her daughter’s “I will kill them all” or her son’s “I’m going to put a sword through Joffrey’s throat.” Theon is the one came to her, the one who told her with unshed tears in his eyes as well before running away. She holds her children tight to her, and they hold her in return, and it reminds her of when they were little when Ned would lift both at the same time to lead them away from whatever mischief they’d gotten themselves into.

“They have your sisters,” she says, and feels her dress go damp from tears. “We have to get the girls back. Then we will kill them all.”

Jon can put his sword through Joffrey’s throat. Robb can take the Queen’s head. It might be some time, but they will kill them all.

****  


 

Getting Robb alone is shockingly simple after the declaration. Everyone is celebrating, and Mother and Theon are both running around trying to keep the men from getting too drunk, but drunk they are anyway and she and Jon can retreat to her tent without question. “If I’m Queen, that makes you a prince,” she says, stretched out beside him, clothes in disarray, and he should spare more thought to what people would think should they find out, but it’s difficult when she’s a constant presence around him. “Since you’re male and older than me, you’re also heir.”

If he was still a Snow, that wouldn’t be the case, and right now he doesn’t want to think of himself as heir. Him being heir means she could die, and he plans to be her shield for as long as he can. “Only until you have a child,” he reminds her, and that’s something they’re careful about.

She rolls over onto her back. “Unless I’m like Mother.”

Even if there are six of them and she never knows they saw, Jon remembers a lot of tears throughout their childhood. When Rickon was born, supposedly there was so much blood she nearly died in childbirth. “At least you won’t be having a baby with a Frey,” he says, and knows he sounds bitter.

“I know,” she says with a sigh. “I still feel terrible for consenting. Even as Queen and Prince, that’s not an arrangement we can break without consequence or at least a solid reason.”

He tells her, “Don’t feel terrible,” because he hates it enough for the both of them, but understands she had to. “If Mother hadn’t convinced him to use me instead, we’d have a Frey king. You needed that bridge.”

“The North’s way is the old way,” she says, repeating the words their father said a thousand times over. “We’re only half-siblings; in other circumstances, we could have gotten married once the war is at its end.”

Though the thought hadn’t crossed his mind yet, he knows it would have eventually, and neither of them needs to think in “what ifs” at the moment. Not when he’s to married off to a Frey and they still have Lannisters to kill. “We have a whole war to stay together,” he says, and touches the side of her face, getting her to look at him. “How about we just...don’t think about it for now?”

They’ll have to think about it eventually, but for now, Robb lets him lean over to kiss her and for the moment, at least, they can separate themselves from the rest of the war.

****  


 

Robbyn Stark is a slip of a thing, that much is certain. Much smaller than Cersei, of slighter build and height. And yet here Jaime is anyway, kept captive by a young woman not much taller than his daughter and younger than his son.

It’s a hard blow to his pride, to say the least.

When she enters his prison, he lifts his head, and she really isn’t fooling anyone if she’s trying to use her furs and armor to look bigger than she is. “Queen in the North,” he says, keeping his eyes on hers. “I keep expecting you to leave me at one castle or the next for safekeeping, but you drag me around from camp to camp. Have you grown fond of me, Stark, is that it? It’s not as though you’re married.”

Her face stays, to his dismay, impassive. “If I left you with one of my bannermen, your father would know within the fortnight,” she answers. “My bannerman would receive a raven with a message: release my son and you’ll be rich beyond your dreams, refuse and your house will be destroyed root and stem.”

She’s more clever than anyone gave her credit for. Sneakier, too, because no one attacks in the dead of night, and she must be at least relatively charismatic to convince her men to agree to that. “You don’t trust the loyalty of the men following you to battle?”

“Oh, I trust them with my life,” she answers, voice mild. “Just not with yours.”

Lifting an eyebrow, he says, “Smart girl,” which is the truth, as much as he hates to admit it, and watches her body tense. “What’s wrong? Don’t like being called girl? Insulted?”

That’s when he hears the low growl. “You insult yourself, Kingslayer,” she says with an inappropriately gentle smile and when he looks to the side, he sees her wolf circling the cage. “You’ve been defeated by a girl. Held captive by a girl. Perhaps you’ll even be killed by a girl.” Her beast enters, large enough to reach not far below her shoulders, and he thinks for a moment they’re the proper sizes for her to ride the thing to battle if she wanted. “Stannis Baratheon sent ravens to all the highborns of Westeros. King Joffrey Baratheon is neither a true king, nor a true Baratheon. He’s your bastard son.”

He tears his eyes away from the direwolf, looks back to Stark’s face. “If that’s true, then Stannis is the rightful king. How convenient for him.”

“My father learned the truth.” Her hand settles on her wolf’s fur and he watches every movement. “That’s why you had him executed -”

“I was your prisoner when Ned Stark lost him head.”

“Your son killed him so the world wouldn’t learn who fathered him and you - you pushed my brother from a window because he saw you with the Queen.”

No one was supposed to realize that. No one was suppose to learn that Joffrey was his son, either, or any of his children. “Do you have proof?” he asks. “Do you want to trade gossip like a couple of fish wives. I know you’re a woman, but I hadn’t thought you soft.”

Unfortunately, Stark just ignores him again. “I’m sending one of your cousins down to King’s Landing with my peace terms.”

“Do you think my father is going to negotiate with you?” he says, because of course Father would rather let him rot in this camp than bring this silly, clever little girl to the table. “You don’t know him very well.”

That smile returns, gentle and dangerous all in one. “No,” she answers, “but I think he’s starting to know me.”

“Three victories don’t make you a conqueror.”

“It’s better than three defeats.”

Well, he thinks as she leaves him alone with her wolf, there’s no arguing that.

****  


 

Before Robb can answer to Theon’s suggestion to negotiate his father’s help, Jon says, “The fleet is still too small and would take too long to sail to King’s Landing. It would make sense to try to work something with Renly. He married into the Reach, and the Tyrells have a navy large enough to rival the royal one.”

Though Theon is clearly hurt by having his idea denied so quickly by either of them, Robb knows her brother is right. More than that, Lord Greyjoy fought against her father. As much as she loves Theon, that love does not extend to his family and she knows it’s the same for Mother. “Well, at least don’t go yourself,”  her friend says, not protesting, which makes her wonder if he actually wants to see his family at all. “I know you said with Frey that you should do your own negotiations, but it would better if you were here.”

“Renly doesn’t know any of us. We’d have a better chance of getting him to our side if we send someone who he does,” she says, because she agrees she can’t do this on her own when her men need her. “Mother would be best, but I don’t want to send her alone.” Even as someone who trained in weaponry her whole life, Robb doesn’t like the idea of travelling alone just because it’s dangerous to do so as a woman, especially now for someone bearing the name Stark. “Would either of you…?”

“I can,” Jon says. “I don’t want her on the King’s Road by herself, either.”

Even if the idea of her brother leaving her is unsettling, there aren’t many people she would want with her mother. “All right,” she says, “but leave Ghost with me. A direwolf will attract too much attention.”

Both boys stare at her in horror, which she expected from Jon but not from Theon. “I can go,” he says. “Jon will go mad without Ghost, Robb.”

In any other context, she would roll her eyes in exasperation, but he has a point. “I’ll leave it to the two of you to decide,” she says, because she doesn’t want to do this herself. “I need to speak with Mother.”

She leaves them alone to bicker and goes off to find her mother because sometimes she needs to give her opportunity to someone else. Hopefully Renly is as nonviolent as she’s heard, because she wants her family safe from harm.

****  


 

Not long after she admits to Gendry that she’s Arya Stark, not some orphan boy, their group stops at an old farm house in the Riverlands and they learn from the farmer that Robb isn’t just leading an army, but that she’s declared the North an independent state and as her mother is a Tully, the Riverlands is now her territory as well. “You aren’t just a lady,” her new friend says in a low voice as they stand in the far back, looking to her with wide eyes. “You’re a princess.”

Princess Arya Stark of Winterfell. “As if Lady Arya weren’t bad enough,” she mumbles, crossing her arms and simultaneously proud of her sister but loathing her new title. “Don’t call me that.”

“As you command, Princess Arya,” he says, and she knocks him with her elbow. “Ow! Don’t worry, I won’t. This lot can’t know, even if you are part of this territory’s royal family.”

If she’s Princess Arya and Robb is Queen in the North, that means Jon, Bran, and Rickon are all princes, and Sansa is a princess, too. “You should come with me,” she tells him. “You can get a job in Winter Town, a real job, or help in the armory in my sister’s camp. It will be better than the Wall.”

“I’ll think about it,” he says, and ruffles her hair as Jon used to. All she wants is her family and she intends to get to them however she can.

****  


 

In the end, Theon is the one who goes with Catelyn because there’s something stranger than usual going on between Jon and Robb and he doesn’t want to see them separated.

They arrive just in time to see Loras Tyrell get knocked to the ground and woman knighted because of it, lead in by Renly’s soldiers. “Your Grace,” one of the men says because of course both Baratheons have already declared themselves the rightful king (Theon is secretly very proud of Robb for getting declared Queen instead of doing it on her own), “I have the honor to bring you Lady Catelyn Stark and Lord Theon Greyjoy, sent as envoys by Robbyn, Lady of Winterfell.”

“Lady of Winterfell and Queen in the North,” her mother says before he can.

Renly nods to them. “Lady Catelyn, Lord Theon, pleased to see you both,” he says, and turns to the woman on his right. “May I present my wife, Margaery of House Tyrell.”

“You’re very welcome here, Lord and Lady,” the woman says, and she has to be around his age, perhaps a bit younger but not by much. “I’m very sorry for your loss.”

Even though they all try to hide it, Lord Stark’s execution still hangs heavy over all over them. “You’re most kind,” Lady Catelyn says.

Kind or not, Theon still feels her eyes gaze his body from feet to eyes. “My Lady,” Renly says, “I swear to you I will see the Lannisters answer for your husband’s murder,” and that was certainly quick. “When I take King’s Landing, I will bring you Joffrey’s head.”

Around them, the men cheer. “It’s enough to know that justice was done, My Lord.”

“Your Grace,” the blonde woman says from their left. “And you should kneel when you approach the King.”

Since her men crowned her, Robb hasn’t required anyone kneel to her. Outside of titles, Theon sometimes forgets that some formalities exist. Before he or Lady Catelyn can answer, though, Renly says, “There’s no need for that. Lady Stark and Lord Greyjoy are honored guests.”

“Has your daughter marched against Tywin Lannister yet?” Ser Loras asks.

“We make it a policy not to share our private war council’s strategies,” Theon answers, glancing behind him. “That’s why they’re private.”

He can’t tell if Lady Stark wants to laugh or hit him, though it’s most likely a mix between the two. “If Robbyn Stark wants a pact with us,” Ser Loras says, “she should come herself, not hide behind her mother and…friend.”

“My daughter is fighting a war, not playing at one,” Lady Catelyn says, and she’s right, because war’s not a game once played in the godswood on lazy summer days.

****  


 

He doesn’t like Roose Bolton. The man’s eyes crawl over his sister every time she’s not in her armor, and he’s too obsessed with his own sigil. “We are the North,” Jon says when he suggests flaying the prisoners and continues to look doubtful even after his Queen points out the Lannisters have Sansa and Arya. “We bring the North with us where we go.”

“You’re dismissed,” Robb says, eyes looking out across the battlefield instead of at them. “Find anyone alive and be sure they receive proper medical attention.”

Instantly, all the lords mumble affirmative and scatter, most likely fearful of the two direwolves beginning to growl at their sides. Ghost and Grey Wind have a keen sense of knowing when the two of them are displeased. “Flaying prisoners,” she repeats once everyone is beyond the range of hearing. “We aren’t the Lannisters. I don’t - whether we’re ceeding or not, I want Westeros to know we’re better than they ever were.”

“I don’t trust him,” Jon says, even though he knows he has no real reason as to why. “I trust all the other banners, just not him.”

Robb’s hand goes to Grey Wind’s neck and she says, “I’m keeping him close. I don’t doubt his loyalty, but I don’t trust his dedication to my methods either.”

Keeping him close is the last thing Jon wants her to do, but he can understand why. He supposes this means he just won’t leave her side, either.

****  


 

“Lady Catelyn, should I aim for his eye or his knee?”

“I wish to speak to you alone, Cat,” Littlefinger says, though he keeps his gaze on Theon who she has no doubt will shoot with one word from her, “and this isn’t a conversation for children.”

Never in her life had she thought the ward she grew up with would be betray her, but he had and now here he is, in her tent in the Stormlands and throwing casual insults in the direction of a boy she raised to be a man. “Theon’s arrow never misses it’s mark,” she tells Littlefinger, who stands there with his smug smile he must have given her husband before he turned around and had him charged with treason. “I suggest you leave before he lets it loose. One more word out of you and he has permission to do so.”

Without glancing towards her, Theon asks again, “So will it be the eye or the knee?” and she tells him the eye, if it pleases him and he loved Ned too, so she does not doubt it would please him very much.

Very wisely, Littlefinger leaves without a word, and Theon stays by her side for the rest of the night.

****  


 

After she and Gendry were more comfortable with each other, he started telling about things he would hear said about her sister in the armory back in King’s Landing, so when Tywin Lannister asks, “And what do they say of Robbyn Stark in the North?” she recalls the less dramatic ones.

Unfortunately, almost everything said about her sister is dramatic. “They used to call her the Winter Rose, but now they call her the Young Wolf,” she answers, and thinks Robb must approve of her new name much more than her old one. “They say she rides to battle on the back of a giant direwolf. They say she’s as fierce as she is beautiful. They say she can’t be killed.”

“And do you believe them?”

“No, My Lord. Anyone can be killed.”

****  


 

Mother returns with disturbing news of Stannis and a women from Renly’s service who swears allegiance.

“Petyr Baelish showed his face, too,” Theon says, reclining back in his bed and rubbing his temples. Apparently to get home, they were on the run, as Renly’s men think they’re responsible for the murder. “I didn’t shoot him, but I scared him away.”

Hearing this makes Robb even more relieved that she had him go along, too. “You should have shot that arrow,” Jon says, and the only good thing to come from this war is that the two of them finally get along. “It’s what he deserves after 

all he’s done.”

“Did he say what he wanted?” she asks because from what Mother says, he isn’t stupid.

Shaking his head, Theon answers, “I got him out of the tent before he could tell us and stayed with her all the way until the conversation with Renly and that shadow creature stabbing him the back.”

Robb crosses her legs, a position she picked up from him, and puts her elbows on her knees. “I bet it had something to do with Sansa and Arya to get back in Mother’s favor. This really isn’t good, though. If it truly was Stannis, that makes him very dangerous.”

“We won’t let him near you,” Jon says, and puts his arm around her shoulders. “No little sister of mine is dying any time soon.”

“No, I’m not,” she says, “and neither is Sansa nor Arya. I promised Mother we would all be together again soon, and I plan to honor that.”

Soon is quickly becoming later than expected, but she won’t rush it if it means keeping her family and her people safe and whole. If anyone in their family is to die, it has to be her because even if she’s gone, Jon will take her place and they can all survive without her.

  


 

While Ser Alton eats under the watchful eye of a few guards, Jon and Theon help a few men build a new pen. The Kingslayer glowers at them from his own pen not far away, and everyone is rather good at ignoring him these days.

At this point they’re all rather good at building pens as well, and by the time Ser Alton is finished eating, they’re finished and Robb splits the prisoners from the Yellow Fork in half so some go with him, giving them all some breathing room.

  


 

“I heard some of the new soldiers talking about your sister,” Shae says as she brushes Sansa’s hair as if that will make her feel any better. “You should hear some of it. My favorite is that she rides to battle on the back of a direwolf.”

When Sansa laughs, the sound borders on hysterics. “Grey Wind is most likely big enough,” she tells her one friend and thinking of Robbyn and Grey Wind makes her think of Lady, which only brings back old pain. “Robb is shorter than I am. I used to tease her mercilessly about it as a child.”

Below, during the siege with the other highborn ladies, she prayed for Joffrey’s death and Robb’s victory and for her home at Winterfell. The loss aches deep inside her and all she wants is to be safe and free.

  


 

Ser Barristan, Daenerys quickly discovers, is a valuable asset she was missing before. “A war?” she repeats when he finishes telling her of the situation in Westeros as it was when he left. “The country is already divided?”

With a nod, he answers, “Right before I boarded the ship, I heard talk of Robbyn Stark start. When her father was imprisoned, she’d gone to war, but by the time I’d left, she’d won three battles and held the Kingslayer captive. If anyone is going to ally with you in Westeros to go against the crown, Your Grace, it’s the Stark girl.”

“Her father fought against mine during Robert’s Rebellion, her aunt is what began it,” Daenerys says, because Ser Barristan may be a valuable asset for advice and news, but this is a line she’s reluctant to cross. “The Stark family also wants Ser Jorah’s head. There must be someone loyal to the Targaryens.”

Unfortunately, his face says that isn’t so. “Her men had declared her Queen in the North. All she’ll want is her land,” he tells her. “Your Grace, neither she nor her siblings were even born during the Rebellion. She never met Lyanna. Her loyalties only lie with her people and anyone against the crown. When I left, the King had one of her sisters captive.”

“Which sister?” Ser Jorah asks, taking Daenerys by surprise. “What of her other siblings?”

“Sansa, the second daughter,” the other man answers. “Arya was there before Ned Stark’s imprisonment, but was gone by the time I left and I still don’t know what became of her. I don’t know about the two younger boys either, but her older brother and their ward are with her.”

Looking to Ser Jorah, whose council she still appreciates more, she says, “You never told me you knew them.”

“I don’t,” he says, “or not personally, but those children are the talk of the North. If Lord Jon and Lady Robbyn are together at war and doing well enough to capture the Kingslayer, the man who put a sword through your father’s back, then Tywin Lannister should be smart enough to fear them.”

The Starks are her enemy, but not more so than the Lannisters, who hold the Iron Throne. Besides, it’s Ned Stark’s children, not the man himself, which is a lesser evil to work with. Her main problem now is their desire to keep the North. “Then we better send a message,” she says, looking down at her own men. “She will meet us when land.”

  


 

In Harrenhal, the Northern soldiers spent the night burying each mangled body individually. At morning light, no one wanted to sleep, and they left for Riverrun immediately. For every one of ours, she told her men, we’ll take a hundred of the theirs.

Now it’s several days later, and every time she shuts her eyes, she still sees those corpses. She gives Uncle Edmure a hug, who squeezes her so tight her back cracks. “You’re nearly as tall as I am!” Uncle Brynden says when he sees Jon, wrapping his arm around her brother’s shoulders and drawing him up close to his side. “Now who told you that you were allowed to get so big?”

“He’s eighteen,” Mother says, clearly exasperated. “Of course he’s taller than when he was ten.”

Uncle Edmure holds Robb at arms’ length. “My niece,” he says, smiling widely despite everything that’s going on, “our Queen. You’re lovely as always.”

It’s been years since she’s last seen her Tully family and while it’s disappointing that the cause is a war and a funeral, she really is pleased to see them again. “You only say that because I look like you,” she answers and knows that soon she’ll have to retreat to her tent to change into her dress for the ceremony. “Only prettier, of course.”

“Well, no one’s arguing that, Robb,” Mother says, and pulls her away. “We should get ready.”

The mood of their small reunion group turns somber quickly. Uncle Edmure shows them to their rooms, as no family of his will be sleeping in tents while here, and Mother stays with her to help her scrub the war off her skin.

  


 

Several hours after the funeral, Robb curls up next to Jon on the real bed they have for the night. She’s drowning in her dress, which fit her so well in Winterfell, but now slips easily off her shoulders and gathers from excess fabric at the waist. “I shouldn’t have lost my temper with Uncle Edmure,” she says, biting her lip and not looking nearly as confident as she had earlier. “He made a stupid decision, but I could have handled that much better than yelling.”

Jon hadn’t been there for that and neither had Theon or Mother, so all he knows of what happened is from her, and Lord Edmure’s grumbling when he thought no one was listening. “This isn’t what one would call an ideal situation to discuss stupid decisions, Robb,” he says. “It could have worse.”

She twists onto her back, presses the heel of her hand to head as if hurts. “You weren’t there,” she says. “Father never would have done anything like that.”

“To be fair, Father had a lot more experience than you.”

“That doesn’t feel like much of an excuse.”

Of course it doesn’t. He rethinks most of his actions, too, after he’d already gone through with them. In all their lives, neither of them has ever met someone who quite matched Father in anything. “What do you think we should do now?” he asks, deciding not to push the matter further. “We can’t just sit here while Tywin Lannister stays comfortably in King’s Landing or the lords will start getting aggravated.”

As she moves her hand from her face, she answers, “Take Casterly Rock,” as if that’s the obvious thing to do. “I know it sounds insane, but now with Uncle Edmure’s mistake we can’t draw them into our territory, and we don’t have the ships to take King’s Landing - I still don’t want to send Theon to his father, and he hasn’t asked again anyway. Unless we ally with Stannis, I don’t see an option, and after we originally wanted to ally with Renly, I can’t imagine him even agreeing to do so unless we manage a major victory.”

Stannis’ fleet was severely depleted during his own attack against King’s Landing from what they heard, but he still has ships. Even though Jon can’t imagine all of their lords being happy with this, their distaste won’t be enough to win over their desire to go home. The same truth applies to him. “You said Lord Edmure lost over two hundred men?” he says, and Robb nods. “We don’t have the numbers right now to take Casterly Rock.”

For a moment, she’s very quiet and very still. Then she suddenly sits up and takes one of his hands in both of his. “The only one allied with us already who has the numbers we need is Walder Frey,” she says, even more upset than before. “If he truly is anything like how Mother describes him, then he’ll probably want the one bargain available to him at the moment fulfilled for this.”

Oh - oh. “There might be a way to delay it until the end of the war.”

But Robb just shakes her head, crossing her arms and curling up into herself. “Perhaps we shouldn’t.”

“What?”

“We both knew it would happen eventually.”

He goes to pull her close, but hesitates before touching her, asking, “Do you want me to leave?”

Again, she shakes her head. “I’ll call a meeting with the war council tomorrow. If they all agree, there’s a chance you and I don’t have much time left as being anything more than brother and sister.”

Even though she’s right, and they both knew it would happen eventually, the realization that this will potentially come to an end sooner than expected hurts. He turns his head to say he loves her, but then her lips press against his and she’s stealing the words straight from his mouth. When he slips his leg over her waist so one knee settles on either side and laces his fingers with hers to press her into the mattress, he almost can’t tell where he ends and she starts.

He thinks it’s probably worse that way, and doesn’t make a move to change it.

  


 

Preparing for the wedding is a horrible affair. Just the simple fact that Lord Frey demands it is bad enough, but then Jon is quick to say he doesn’t want a public bedding, which reminds Robb that there even will be a bedding in the first place. Normally being chided by her mother for the sudden oversized nature of her dress would be enough to put her in an awful mood, but now she’s barely listening.

“Have you even been eating?” Mother asks, pulling in the fabric to stitch it close and fit it more snuggly against her waist. “You’re wasting away.”

The shoulders are the hardest to fix, and the only way to do so is to make the sleeves fit not quite over them anymore, but circle around them. After months of armor and men’s clothing, it’s the most revealing thing she’s worn. “I’m just running around more than I used to,” she answers, which is true, and knows her tone is dull. “And you know I’ve been eating. You, Jon, and Theon see to that often enough.”

“That’s because even a lady shouldn’t been so careless she forgets to herself, let alone a queen. You’re small enough already.”

Yes, yes, she knows she’s small. People have been reminding her of it since she was a child, and Maester Luwin told her it’s because she was born too early. “I’ll be all right,” she tells her. “I just want to get through tonight so we can leave at dawn.”

As Mother gives her dress one last tug so it fall flat, she says, “Do you really think Theon and Lord Umber will be able to keep the men from drinking too much to wake themselves come dawn?”

“I asked Uncle Brynden to help them and Uncle Edmure, so I hope,” she says and wishes they could be anywhere but here, that they’d killed the Mountain, and Renly hadn’t died, and even found a way out of this because she doesn’t want Jon to leave her. “Theon is keeping watch over Grey Wind and Ghost, too. I don’t like the idea of them caged. Should I have brought my whole host?”

“It’s time to go,” Mother says, standing and brushing out a wrinkle on her shoulder. “Your men and direwolves will be fine, Robb. Tomorrow we can leave and the rest of your men will met you on the way to Casterly Rock. Bringing all of them would have appeared threatening. Now remember to smile. You’re Queen, after all.”

Smiling is difficult, but she’s learned how to pretend for years and does so. Mother leaves first and right before she does, sends her a look of such pity that Robb wonders if she knew more than she let on.

  


 

Jon takes a crossbow arrow to the back meant for his sister and Mother stabs Lord Bolton’s hand with a dinner knife. If it were just the Boltons or the Freys alone, that might have been the end of it, but instead it’s both together, and it isn’t long before Jon takes a knife to the thigh and the few Northern loyal lords and the larger number of traitors have all managed to kill each other.

He’s still on the ground when the arrow lodges itself into Robb’s shoulder and Mother gets a knife to his new wife. She’s speaking, but blood loss distorts his ability to concentrate, and all he can focus on is Roose Bolton slitting cutting her deep just as she slits Roslin Frey’s throat.

Before he faints, the last thing he hears is Bolton say, “The Lannisters send their regards,” and he knew he shouldn’t have trusted the man from the start.

  


 

This is a fact: Robbyn Stark is small.

Shock and injury only make it easier for Roose Bolton to suddenly lay her out against the floor and she’s a smart girl, she can think even when her brother won’t open his eyes and her men are dead and her mother is dead and Lord Frey is watching even as his wife says it would be faster just to kill her, don’t you think? Robb lashes out, hits Bolton in the chest with her hand and misses where she was aiming with her knee, but still connects with the inside of his thigh. It does absolutely nothing, and he rearranges her limbs quick enough to render her immobile, pulling on arrow in her shoulder. The Lannisters send their regards.

“If you were a boy,” he says, and everything is suddenly made sharper and more noticeable, like how Jon is still breathing, and there’s noise of fighting from outside, and something wet and sticking and blatantly blood is brushing up against her side, “I would have stabbed you in the heart outright, but I’ve been wanting to do this since I first laid eyes on you.”

He’s wearing chainmail, and it rubs raw against her wrists as he grabs both her hands in one of his and goes about undoing his trousers. When he goes to move her skirts, she tries to hit him again, but he just presses down hard onto her knee to lie to the side. She’s never gone this far with Jon. She needs to get married one day, she couldn’t go this far with Jon, this is going to hurt, he isn’t just killing her but humiliating -

Then he forces himself in without delay and she screams, but the sound is cut off quick when he covers her mouth with his hand. She bites down, and it does nothing through the fabric of his glove, and everything goes blank except his face, and him moving inside her while keeping her hands pressed down with one of his and pushing her leg with his knee.

When he’s ripped away, it’s sudden, and his blood splatters across her face and chest.

“Damn Starks,” the Hound says. “I’ll never get done saving you.”

  


 

“Theon!”

He’s ripping an arrow out the eye of a Frey man when he hears the voice and when he turns, she’s really there, running towards him through the small mound of traitors’ corpses. “Arya?”

If he hadn’t such good eyes, they would have been ambushed. He thinks it’s ridiculous that someone he missed the sight of the girl who’s practically his little sister coming up from the side of him. She looks worse for wear, with her hair cut short and dressed in boy’s clothing, out of breath like she just fought a battle, too. “I haven’t got the time to explain,” she says, and puts her hand over her chest while she tries to get some air into her lungs. “I need - We need someone who can heal to come to the hall. Everyone’s hurt.”

Everyone. Lady Catelyn, Jon, Robb. “Lady Talisa should be three tents down, just say you’re Princess Arya and it’s for the Queen, she can’t refuse,” he says, hating the idea of leaving her but disliking the idea of leaving the rest of them injured more. “Meet us in Robbyn’s room, she’ll know where it is.”

She nods, already running off before he can so much as move without offering explanation. He can carry Robb and Lady Catelyn if he has to, but not Jon, who’s bigger. And if Arya, who appeared from nowhere, had to come get him herself, that must mean everyone is unconscious.

Everyone is not just unconscious, he discovers upon entering, and the shock is almost enough to get him to stop in the doorway. Catelyn’s throat is cut to the bone, Jon shot with an arrow and blood seeping from his leg, and Robb so horribly awake as Roose Bolton’s blood drips out of his body and onto hers. Theon isn’t sure why the Hound is here stabbing the traitor through the heart, but it’s Lord Frey that he shoots with the arrow he has in hand. The man’s wife screams.

Though the Hound being here probably means something important, Theon ignores him, dropping to his knees next to his friend and turning her face towards his as her eyes start to wander in direction of her mother’s body. “Look at me, Robb, you’re safe now,” he says as he reaches down to rearrange her skirts, and hopes he isn’t a liar. “Focus on my face. I’m not going to let anyone else hurt you.”

“H-how -?”

“Ser Clegange, I don’t know why you’re here, but if you could pick up Prince Jon and follow me, I’d greatly appreciate that,” he says, keeping his eyes on Robb, and though this is a bad thing to do when she has an arrow in her, he slips one hand under her knees and the other around her shoulders and picks her up. She goes to turn her head again in the direction of Lady Catelyn, probably to look for Jon, but when he says, “Focus on me, Robb,” she listens.

Between the hall entrance and her room, she faints, body going lax as a doll in his arms, and that’s just as Arya and Lady Talisa reach them, carrying supplies. “Lay them on the bed and get out, My Lords, Princess,” she says after one glance. “This will be easier alone.”

Theon’s entire body is shaking by the time he places Robb down next to her brother and if it weren’t for the unsteady rise and fall of both their chests, he’d think them dead. Though it’s hard, he does leave, and makes Arya leave along with him to sort this out. The first thing he does is hug her because it’s been so long since they’ve seen each other and more than that, no one deserves to finally return and find her sister raped, brother injured, and mother dead. “I found the little wolf in the Riverlands, caught by Thoros of Myr,” Ser Clegane says, and Theon doesn’t recognize the name. “I thought with you being so close I should bring her back to her family.”

Arya says, “No you didn’t,” but her voice is muffled by Theon’s shirt, and she grips him tighter. “You wanted to ransom me. Theon, he’s running away from the King and he wants money.”

“Well, as you can see that isn’t exactly an option right now,” Theon says because there’s no one here to handle that but him with the family like this and he isn’t leaving this doorway until he knows they’re safe. It’s difficult enough as it is realizing there’s no way to save the closest person he ever had to a mother because Lady Catelyn is already gone. “Just…thank you.”

“A man’s got to have a got to have a code,” the Hound says, which means he’s all right with killing but raping is too much. “I suppose I’ll have to find some other way to get the money I need. There’s got to be more than one man in your lot who wants my head.”

All of them, probably, because he worked for the Lannisters once and Theon can’t see who else could have caused this. He offers the man no words of advice or the money he must still want. Instead they bid each other goodbye at the doorway and he keeps Arya tucked in his arms, afraid to let her go.

  


 

Sansa marries Tyrion on a warm autumn morning and the transition from House Stark to House Lannister presses heavy on her back. They’ve already called her a bird, caged her up, and now they’ve smothered her with a lion.

She tells herself it won’t be long before they remember she’s still a wolf.

  


 

During the attack that night, someone let Jaime out, but he knew better than to run, and he’s certainly rewarded for that today when, after he watches the Starks burn the Frey and Bolton banners, the Queen in the North comes to him and asks, “If I trade you for Sansa, will your father kill her?”

For a prisoner, he’s been treated well and he knows this. So well, in fact, that he can’t quite hate her as much as he wants, and he’s smart enough to see what’s right in front of him. She’s limping in a very distinctive way, after all, and trying to hide it. “In a fair hostage trade? Doubtful,” he answers. “I suppose my family is somehow the cause of all this.”

“Brienne, let him out,” she says, turning away from him and that’s telling enough. “Lannister, Lady Brienne here and Blackfish are going to deliver you to King’s Landing and bring Sansa safely back to me. There are revised peace terms written in a letter. But I want you to give your family a special message from me to him.”

A blonde woman in armor he’s seen lurking around Lady Stark more than once undoes his irons, but keeps his hands bound. “And what might that be, Your Grace?” It doesn’t come out nearly as sarcastic as he intended it too, but she’s here without Jon or her mother - her brother was there for the banner burnings, arm around Greyjoy’s shoulders, but Lady Catelyn was not.

“Your son is getting married soon, Ser Jaime,” she says. “Tell King Joffrey the Starks send their regards.”

  
  


 

Jon and Robb spend even more time with each other than last they all saw of each other. Both of them make an effort to be with her, and are happy to be with her, and Arya can see that, but she can also see that under different circumstances they shouldn’t have left so quickly. They put on brave faces, but even a two year absence doesn’t mean she suddenly forgets the eleven years they were together and they can’t fool her. She’s with Theon most days, where he teaches her how to use a bow and knife so she can learn how to better defend herself.

When Robb suddenly comes hurrying over, no longer limping, with a still slightly-limping Jon right behind her, Arya is practicing how to shoot an arrow without spending a minute just adjusting her stance. “I’m going to call the war council in a minute,” she says, rolling open a letter, “but I wanted to show you three beforehand. I received a raven from Daenerys Targaryen, who’s on a ship halfway across the Narrow Sea. She wants to ally with us.”

“I was starting to think she was a myth, we heard of her so rarely,” Theon says, and takes the letter from her hand. “Well, that would give us seapower.”

“And dragons,” Arya adds, because she heard about Daenerys Targaryen while in Harrenhal. “She has dragons.”

Jon says, “Seapower and dragons, no argument that would be good,” and takes the letter from Theon. “She doesn’t mention terms, though. Meeting in the Stormlands will be difficult, too. The only way to get there from the Casterly Rock will be the cross the Reach. Brienne is from Tarth, though. We could always arrange for a meeting with her father’s permission. We’re already collecting Sansa there.”

“That’s what I thought,” Robb says, brushing her hair from her face. “Of course, I was already planning on writing to Stannis, but we’ll discuss with the men which they think we should do first. Whether we like it or not, it seems as though she’s coming.”

The Red Woman was working for Stannis, if Arya remembers correctly. She would much rather ally with Daenerys Targaryen, though she supposes she wouldn’t mind the last Baratheon brother if it meant King Joffrey would finally die. “Will this give us time to get there by the royal wedding?” Jon asks, and Robb nods. “Well. The Starks send their regards.”

She laughs, though it’s without humor, and when she slips into Theon’s sent as that laughter turns to tears, Arya wonders what she missed.

  


 

Only a half hour ago, Tyrion had to tell Sansa as gently as he could that her mother was dead. Now he sits in the small council room with his whole family where, to his great surprise, Jaime is yelling at Father about the Stark girl. “The only reason she isn’t dead right now is because Roose Bolton raped her,” he says, and even Cersei has the decency to look disgusted at that. “The two I was with thought I was asleep when they were so secretly discussing the fate of their Queen. Apparently details are hazy, but everyone is in consensus that the man you sent to kill her raped her after killing her mother and Theon Greyjoy killed Walder Frey.”

“It was supposed to be a quick death,” Father says. “That’s what I told him. Not - This is a disaster.”

Looking between all of them, Tyrion says, “Attempting to assassinate the Starks at a Stark wedding was an inevitable disaster. Jon and Robbyn are obsessed with each other. The little time I spent at the Wall with him made that clear enough. They were likely on high alert for the whole ceremony and celebration to begin with.”

Obsessed with each other is putting it lightly. Now that he has verification that there is something more between his own brother and sister, he can say with relatively certainty that the same is true for the Stark siblings. And his family just had Jon’s little sister raped, whether that was intended or not. He was good enough at the Wall and war must’ve only made him improve.

“Well, it must have lowered their resolve if she sent you home,” Joffrey says and this whole thing would have been avoided had he not taken Ned Stark’s head. “We also got their mother killed.”

With a rough smile, Cersei says, “It doesn’t quite work that way for people like them,” and Jaime pulls a rolled up paper from his shirt. “And that is?”

He passes it to Father, not her or Joffrey, he answers, “Robbyn Stark’s new peace terms.” As Father unrolls it, Jaime adds, “And, Joffrey, she has an additional message for you involving your own wedding.”

Joffrey is smiling too, but it’s amused instead of rough. “What is it?”

“The Starks send their regards.”

That has to mean something, though Tyrion doesn’t know what, and Father’s shoulders visibly tense. The letter he starts at mustn’t help, because he says, “She demands we let Sansa go in a fair trade. Well, now that she’s married -”

“She will.” Everyone turns to stare. “I am her husband, I can decide what to do with her. Jaime has been returned and married or not, it’s only fair if we return her. If we win this war, she then returns to us and we gain control of the North.”

Cersei raises an eyebrow. “Not if, brother,” she says, “but when,” and as he doesn’t answer, she turns back to Father and asks, “What else?”

“Only one other demand,” he answers. “Our total and complete surrender.”

Though Joffrey laughs as if this is some joke, Tyrion understands it’s much worse than that. The Starks aren’t demanding anything at all; they’re simply stating what’s going to happen.

He wonders if now is the time when he should start feeling afraid.

  


 

They take a stone city in the dead of night with fire and dressed in their hooded dark furs. It shouldn’t be easy, but the Mountain is a tactical fool and the archers show no mercy to the guards patrolling the walls they shoot with their flaming arrows. He falls for their bait, and comes running through the Lion Gate. The sight is the van’s signal, and Robb joins her men when they fall on they column of Lannister soldiers pouring from the Gate, attacking from either side.

As she hoped, the Mountain is too proud to call an immediate retreat. In the confusion, Jon, Ghost, and a number of Northerns slip through the Lion Gate and infiltrate the city from the inside. During the attack of Blackwater, Tywin Lannister brought most of the bannermen Robb or the River Lords hadn’t already killed or captured, and not many are left here in this sleeping city. By the time a retreat is called, most of her men have made it through and many of his have fallen, and Jon kills Clegane by shoving his blade through the back of his neck. From there, it isn’t long before daybreak and they make it to the keep at the top of the mountain where they throw the acting lords in their own dungeons with only minimal struggle.

Casterly Rock, the keep that stayed strong through every battle that came to its gates, falls to the Northern army in a single night.

When Uncle Edmure burns their banners without her directive, she makes no comment. Instead she helps Jon and Theon kill every raven before they make their way back down and reuniting with Arya.

  


 

“Tywin Lannister forced me to marry Tyrion,” Sansa tells her siblings not long after they reunite, afraid to look them in the eye. “I didn’t want to.”

Robb sits down next to her, slips her hand in hers and her smile doesn’t seem to forced. “You’re back with us,” she says, “and that matters to me more than any forced Lannister husband ever could.”

Before Sansa left, the Queen said her sister had been raped when Mother died. Though that never happened to her, she’s spent months being beaten for entertainment and she can’t help but wonder how Robb’s smile can still be so soft. Arya, Jon, and Theon all seem hardened, too, but perhaps they just aren’t as good at pretending. “I missed you,” she says, look around at all of them, and she isn’t expecting it when suddenly all four of them are hugging her at once.

If anyone understands what it means to love family, it’s them. Sansa thinks she never realized that until now.

  


 

Unlike Daenerys, who has Missandei introduce her, Robbyn Stark introduces her and her family herself. All the Starks and the Greyjoy man have exhaustion heavy set in their bodies and eyes and their army is three times that of hers.

When it comes to discussing peace terms, Stark requests everyone leaves and they both disarm themselves, which includes dragons and direwolves, but Daenerys is so desperate that she’s willing to allow them to continue to fly over the cliffs themselves for a while. “I don’t wish to delay this anymore than I have to, so let’s begin,” the other woman says with a smile and takes a seat across from her at the table. “I have two little brothers at home I love very much and four family members here, as well as my subjects. I want to go home. I haven’t seen my home in nearly two years. The terms of our alliance are to figured out now in order to combine our separate war techniques and conquer King’s Landing. Do you object, Queen Daenerys?”

Though tired, she looks every bit the stories Ser Barristan told of her, with her wild red hair and warrior’s body. She’s someone whose hair should be covered with braids. “I do not,” Daenerys answers, crossing her legs and feeling naked without her dragons behind her. “I want the Iron Throne.”

“I want you to have the Iron Throne. I have no desire for that uncomfortable thing for myself,” Queen Robbyn says. “That said, the North will be a free and independent nation from this day until the last days. My people declared me Queen and I will not disappoint them by giving it back to you.”

This is what she was hoping to save for last. “I’m reluctant to -” she starts, but before she can finish to say she consents, the other woman leans forward across the table.

“If you don’t give me the North to rule as my own,” she says, “the Iron Throne will be yours but my family will still lay claim to half of Westeros. The Lannisters forced my sister to marry into the family, so we have a claim to Casterly Rock, especially if you were to kill every Lannister. I annexed the Riverlands through my Tully side. My cousin is lord in the Vale. Theon is the sole heir to the Iron Islands. I’m willing to marry my siblings into the Reach, Dorne, and the Stormlands. I’m still unmarried, as well. That’s not even getting into all the smaller Houses I have control of. You still don’t have the political power to destroy and rebuild every Great House, Your Grace, and I already have rightful claim to half.”

Daenerys does intimidation. She knows her political strategies are not the best and without her dragons behind her, she’s suddenly aware that this...girl holds a sway no one else she’s spoken to has. “We will still be allied with trade and war,” she says because she doesn’t want someone in her country who has claim to so many of the Great Houses. “Do you consent?”

“Winter is coming, Your Grace,” Stark says. “We’re allies now. Don’t think I’m going to abandon you in your time of need.”

“Will you give up your claims in Westeros?”

“I want nothing to do with this place. Of course I will,” she answers. “I want to kill the King and Queen Regent myself. I would like to kill Tywin, too, but I understand if you want that honor.”

Tywin Lannister is the one who ran her family from Westeros by killing even the children. “That was my intention.”

“Leave the Tyrells alive, though they’re allied with the Lannisters,” Stark says. “The same is true for Tommen and Myrcella. I know it will be your country now, but I don’t want a couple of children to die.”

This is beginning to feel less like a treaty and more like orders. From the look on Stark’s face, Daenerys suspects the woman knows it, too. “I’m not like them,” she tells her. “I won’t kill anyone who doesn’t raise a sword against me. You say you own the Riverlands through your maternal side. When you say you mean to break ties with Westeros, do you understand those Houses will be included?”

With a slight nod, Stark answers, “They’re my family, so inevitably we’ll contact each other, but I’ll give you back the Riverlands themselves. Currently it’s my territory. All I ask is one favor.”

Neither of them are in any position to ask favors yet, but Daenerys says anyway, “Which is?”

“When I return home and you settle this country as your own,” she says, “I want you to go to this little area of land in the Riverlands called the Twins, once owned by the Freys before they all were killed. It’s in a very advantageous position, so rebuild a bridge in its place, but use your dragons and burn it to ash.”

Daenerys knows better than to ask why when she agrees. She recognizes the look of someone who went through something they would rather forget. The other woman reclines against her chair, smile on her face, and says, “Well, look at us. Enemies in war not twenty years ago and already crafting peace terms.”

There’s a lot Daenerys could say about that, like how it was the Starks that sparked the war and if it weren’t for them, they wouldn’t have to do this in the first place, but she holds her tongue. “Do you have a plan of attack yet?” she asks instead.

As she expected, Stark already does. They map it out together, though she largely takes control of the plans, and it isn’t long before she calls the war council inside. Daenerys still doesn’t know if she trusts these Northerners, but she also knows there’s no one else and that’s enough for her.

  


 

In the aftermath of the wedding and with half their family reunited, it’s difficult for Robb and Jon to ever have any time alone. When they do, it’s night, and no one seems to think it strange if they’re together longer than they used to be. After all, they lived it together and if she has the occasional terrible dream or two, well, no one is particularly surprised.

“This is going to work,” he says softly the night that she crafts the peace terms and attack on King’s Landing with the Targaryen woman. “It won’t be long before we go home.”

Home. She’s been dreaming of Winterfell more than she used to, dreams of it burning or falling to ruin because she isn’t the good Queen everyone seems to expect her to be. Though she never had high hopes for herself to begin with, she thought what she was taught when learning to be Lady of Winterfell and her love for her people would be enough to establish a working order. The incident at the Twins put something very real into perspective, though - she lost three lords, one betrayed her, Mother is dead, and if she really is the Queen everyone seems to expect her to be, then...that wouldn’t happened so easily. And maybe no one expected her to be as good as she thought they did, because none of her men that have figured it out for themselves seem to fault her for it. If they really thought she was to be good, then they would have thought her stronger than that.

She’d never felt so powerless in her life.

Without looking at him, she answers, “I’ll have to marry before winter reaches its height. Another wedding. Oh, joy.”

Even when she feels his hand on her shoulder, she still doesn’t look up, pretending to be too preoccupied with a loose thread on the edge of her furs. “You said it before, Robb,” he says. “The North’s way is the old way. It doesn’t have to be a stranger.”

Will her men be surprised? She doesn’t want to make another bad decision. “Do you still -” she starts, and he must predict the end of her question because he interrupts her with a kiss.

“I always will,” he tells her, drawing her close, “and I’ll always love you.”

His heartbeat is steady against his chest, the cold of his hands seeping through her shirt. “I love you, too,” she says. “I love you so, so much.”

  


 

King’s Landing is chaos preparing for the royal wedding when Robbyn Stark attacks with Daenerys Targaryen as her ally. Tywin thought he was ready. Apparently midnight three days before the expected date doesn’t leave him as prepared as he thought he was.

The dragons, it seems, are more than curiosities, large enough to make a difference and they should be his greatest concern, but it’s the Northern army he’s forced to turn his attention to. After one dragons burns straight through the metal of the front gate, eighteen thousand men flood the city streets. Civilians peer curious and scared out windows, the highborn ladies of the palace have retreated below, most of his own soldiers are still half asleep as they try their counterattack. A disaster, Tyrion called the attempted assassination, but it was nothing compared to this.

When the war first began, Tyrion said she fights like a child, and even Stark children are as dishonest as they are unpredictable. Tywin’s too distracted by Robbyn disarming Jaime to notice the arrow coming from behind him. It isn’t under he falls, the tip of it lodged through thigh, that he sees the bowman was not some adult, but Theon Greyjoy. A Greyjoy. Adding insult to injury.

They stayed close, his family. Jon Stark has his sword poised across Joffrey’s neck. “Call for surrender, Lannister,” he says, and another column of fire shoots up from the shoreline. They’d taken Casterly Rock in one night. With the help of dragons and sea power, it looks as though they’d just taken King’s Landing in a matter of hours.

Tywin has never been so ashamed and appalled with himself in all his years as commander.

Joffrey, of course, is cursing and saying that no, he won’t, and the Greyjoy boy kicks Tywin’s sword out of his grasp. The fighting around them has stopped, all eyes focused on the arrow aimed for his head, the sharp blade wrapped around the King’s neck, and the tip of Robbyn Stark’s thin sword pressed against the underside of Jaime’s chin. “We surrender!” Tyrion shouts as the dragons circle overhead, screeching, and he’s always been a stain to the Lannister name. “As the King’s uncle and Queen’s brother, I call for surrender.”

Those are no terms under which to accept a surrender, but next thing Tywin knows, someone has him from behind, wrapping him in rope, and the last thing he sees before the boy knocks him out with the end of his bow is Theon Greyjoy’s sarcastic, youthful smile.

That wedding was a grave mistake.

  


 

Tommen remains downstairs with his father and uncle during the execution, as Robb wasn’t just going to let a little boy go parentless and Tyrion helped his sister. The Queen dies first, keeps her head held high until the very end when she must bow, and her neck is thin enough that despite not having much upper body strength, Robb removed her head with one strike. Though everyone expects her to do the same with Joffrey, Jon promised to put a sword through his throat, and she lets him see through the beheading without argument. All the while Sansa and Arya stand there, impassive as they watch, and when the King’s head rolls, a Dornish name in the crowd claps enthusiastically.

Then Queen Daenerys’ dragons burns Tywin alive. Despite hating the man and wanting him dead, Robbyn finds that more disgusting than she’d like to admit.

Everyone is quiet when the executions are over, and Robb steps forward. “I am Robbyn of House Stark, Lady of Winterfell and Queen in the North,” she says, though even those who weren’t already aware must have figured that out for themselves. “I hold no claim to the Iron Throne and I have no intention of taking it. The Lannisters have mistreated you, Robert Baratheon was a soldier, not a king, and many of you remember life as it was under the Mad King. Not all Targaryens suffer from the same affliction that he did and though I refuse the Iron Throne for myself, I am confident that I leave the people of Westeros in the hands of a ruler who will finally treat you as you deserve. Within the week, my men and I leave for the North. Any Northerners here who wish to return as well are welcome to follow.”

She backs down then, resigning officially from any claim she had in Westeros whether those below realize it or not, and Daenerys gives a speech of her own. It’s moving, in its own way, but Robb’s fumbling hand finds Jon’s, and then Sansa’s, who takes hold of Theon’s, and Arya holds Jon’s other. They are of Winterfell, and it’s time they return home.

 

 

To remove all connections in Westeros, they annul Sansa and Tyrion’s marriage, which neither of them mind. Theon offers to marry Sansa, not necessarily out of love but for her protection after everything she’s been through, and she’s quick to accept. It also removes the Stark claim from the Iron Islands because even though he isn’t blood, he’s still family. And, probably because he’s no longer an option, it’s her family who suggests the idea instead of Robb herself.

“There aren’t many unwed lads left around your age in the North from what the lords say, Your Grace,” Uncle Brynden tells her after she gives him permission to speak his mind, because part of the post-war peace terms with Queen Daenerys was that for the first generation, to ensure she had no claim outside her Tully family, she had to marry someone within her country, “and you Northerners are always going on about how your way is the old way, so have thought of...possibly marrying Jon to keep the Stark line?”

For a moment, she doesn’t know what to say. “You’re my uncle,” she answers, surprised. “You’re my uncle and you’re really - why are the lords discussing my marriage? And please just call me Robb like you used to.”

“To be frank, Robb,” he says, and her name sounds much more comfortable to him than her title, “your people love you and they’re, well, worried, I suppose.”

Oh. Exactly what she needs to hear, that her people are worried for her. She won a war not fortnight ago and still feels weak. If the nightmares went away, perhaps she wouldn’t. “I’ll speak with Jon,” she says, which is more transparent than she means it to be. “Thank you for your concern, Uncle.”

Before he leaves, he gives her shoulder a squeeze of what she thinks is sympathy. The ease of this should make her feel better, but in the wake of everything that’s happened, she feels nothing at all.

  


 

The Starks, with Theon now officially included, all fall into each other come their return to Winterfell. Jon holds Bran close, and Robb does the same with Rickon, and everyone else huddles in, arms around each other. People surround them, cheering and chattering, but not a single Stark makes a sound.

Instead they stand there, and feel each other breathe.

  


 

Both marriages are quiet affairs, despite their status as royal weddings, and held outdoors. No one wants to risk locked doors, after all, and for Jon and Robb’s, the people there are mostly just confused. Neither hold a public bedding. People have always called Northerners cold, and Arya aptly names both events as the least celebratory royal celebrations in all of history. Jon, personally, doesn’t care one way or the other, and neither does anyone else.

The night they complete their marriage, Jon strips his sister of her dress in the safety of what was once her solar but now theirs, and every time he asks, “Do you want to stop?” she shakes her head.

When she begins shaking, he stops anyway, and she mumbles “I’m sorry” over and over into his shoulder as he strokes her hair and tells her not apologize. By the time they fall asleep, he pretends he doesn’t see the tears on her cheeks.

 

 

It’s hard. Winter falls upon them with a vengeance Robb finds terribly unfair, and no fires they build ever seem to keep them warm.

In the first year, they have a little boy they name Eddard, and fourteen months later a little girl they name Lyanna because Sansa and Theon stole Catelyn before they could use it. Arya marries a boy named Gendry, who escaped Stannis and managed to find his way North with the help of Uncle Edmure, and Robb justifies it because he has Baratheon blood, bastard or not, but more than that he makes her sister happy. Some nights, they all still wake up from nightmares about the war and things born from it, and North endures the winter with the same tired strength it uses for everything. Robb waits anxiously for spring, and for summer, because she wants all her children to know more than darkness and cold and ice.

It’s hard, beyond a doubt. But no matter how hard it gets, the wolves of the North will endure, and Robb can do anything as long as she has her family at her side.


End file.
